


Mask vs. Mask

by desperatetimes (lyricl)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Vigilantism, spiritassassin 2017 exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10539972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricl/pseuds/desperatetimes
Summary: Chirrut wants to fight crime. Baze wants Chirrut.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [metrolights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metrolights/gifts).



> For metropolitanlights, who asked for Chirrut and Baze as masked vigilantes. Special shoutout to anyone who loves Lucha Libre like I do.

“No,” Baze said.

“Baze—“

“No.”

“Baze, you’re not—“

“No.” Baze drew out the word as he heaped black rice into his bowl. He smiled tightly at Malika as she hefted a fresh pot of rice onto the long serving table at the front of the dining hall. She glanced back and forth between Baze and Chirrut in amusement.

“You could at least let me—“

“Let you what?” Baze barely waited for Chirrut to grab his own dinner before striding off toward the balcony where they often took their meals. This was an unanticipated luxury of obtaining Guardian status last year: a newly earned mastery of the Temple’s vast spaces. “Let you explain this completely insane idea? An idea that could get us stuck in Remedial or Isolation for a month, or even killed?”

“Yes!” Chirrut followed Baze up the winding stairs, huffing with displeasure. Baze settled down into a cross-legged position with a groan, his hamstrings protesting a long day of kneeling in endless negotiations to resolve the ongoing trade dispute. Over the supply of freeze dried fish. Which Baze—not that anyone had asked him—found truly disgusting.

“Two of the city’s most well-known Guardians sneak out of the Walled City without anyone noticing, take out an infamous crew of bandits, then sneak back in?” Chirrut had suggested this to Baze when they met to eat dinner like it was a fun project for them to work on together. Like building a new apiary or starting up a children’s reading group.

“Please. Don’t get a big head. We’re hardly famous.” Chirrut had a way of scrunching up his nose whenever he thought Baze was being an unnecessary stickler for the rules. Baze tried not to find it cute.

“Chirrut,” Baze said, turning a heavy gaze on his friend. “More people attended your previous demonstration than any Temple event I can ever remember. And I’ve been Deputy Liaison to the City for 6 months now. It’s hardy egotistical to recognize that people know us.”

Chirrut rolled his eyes slightly as he took a bite of rice but admitted the point. Baze decided to take a risk, to reward this concession.

“It’s the cost of having such a handsome face,” he said. “People remember.” He watched Chirrut’s reaction carefully.

Chirrut snorted in laughter. “Yes, who could forget you?” _Force_ , it was like he intentionally misunderstood Baze’s attempts. Now he had to double down.

“I meant you,” he said. Chirrut blushed immediately, but was not swayed from his course.

“Baze, these robberies are out of control. You of all people know it’s starting to seriously affect supplies to and from the Outer Villages. And the Shatter Rock Bandits don’t just rob people! Jaspur Trad still walks with a cane after what they did to him, and his daughter had to watch the whole thing—“

“I know! I know. But Chirrut, you know the Outer Villages haven’t reached a consensus yet about whether they want our assistance. We can’t just decide unilaterally to intervene.” Really, Baze just wanted to eat his dinner. And stare at Chirrut’s face. This didn’t seem like too much to ask the universe for.

“Baze, the Greater Village Council hasn’t decided yet, but the people need us.” Chirrut turned his pretty brown eyes on Baze beseechingly. Baze actually felt his face start to soften and brought his eyebrows back down into a skeptical frown. “They can’t wait for two dozen Alderpeople to grandstand about their villages’ autonomy and give soliloquies about Guardian interference.” Baze did actually agree about the soliloquies, given that it was his job now to sit through through them while nodding and looking appropriately pious and thoughtful, but this was besides the point.

“Besides, we don’t need to worry about being recognized.” Chirrut rummaged through his satchel, setting aside two books he definitely was not supposed to take out of the library, a packet of that Force-forsaken freeze dried fish, and a squashed rice cake. Finally he found what he was seeking and twirled it over his head like he was lassoing a bantha. “Look!”

“What the hell is that?” Whatever it was, it was colorful. And…shiny?

“Masks!” Chirrut tossed one to Baze and held his own up to admire it.

“Chirrut.” Baze stared down at the bright red and blue mask in his hands. It had mesh coverings over the eyes and mouths. It was hideous. “You can’t be serious.”

“Aren’t they great?” Chirrut pulled his own purple and silver mask over his face and flung out his arms in enthusiasm. “What do you think?”

“You look—“ Baze may not have Chirrut’s love for endless chatter, but it was rare he was genuinely speechless. “I truly have no words for how ridiculous you look.” Chirrut scoffed at this and held up his empty metal bowl to try and look at this reflection. “Where did you get these?”

“There’s a woman from Huitzili down in the market. She’s staying in Jedda to complete a month of prayer at the temple and selling goods in the market to pay her way. Apparently they use these for martial arts demonstrations there!” Even through the mask (and despite his horror at Chirrut’s outrageous proposal), Baze had to enjoy how genuinely delighted Chirrut was.

“Does yours—why does it have a bird on it?” Baze said. At least now he was cured of his lovesick delusion that Chirrut could make anything look good.

“Oh, is that what it’s supposed to be, you think? Hmmn. I don’t know!” Chirrut pulled the mask back off to examine it, leaving his hair ruffled in all directions. Force give Baze strength. He loved Chirrut—had loved him his whole life, it felt like, even though they’d met at 13—and thus struggled perpetually not to give into his preposterous schemes.

This new…tension…that had entered their relationship ever since the Salt Baths Incident wasn’t helping either. Baze hadn’t realized how in denial he was about his attraction to Chirrut until two weeks ago, when he reached down to give Chirrut a hand out of one of the hot salt pools after a long soak. He was so worried about slipping on the wet rock that he overcompensated and hauled Chirrut out of the pool entirely, pulling Chirrut tight to his body.

As long as he lived, he’d never forget the feel of Chirrut’s blood hot, very naked body pressed up against his, or the look on Chirrut’s face. Or even worse, the sound of Initiate Khideeja coming around the corner to replace the towels and shrieking like a cave bat.

Baze shoved these memories into the “night time only” section of his brain where they belonged, and gathered up his dishes. “Chirrut, my friend. I admire your dedication.” Baze offered Chirrut a hand up from the floor (carefully, after the Incident), grabbing his bowl for him. He threw an arm over Chirrut’s shoulder, enjoying the little hitch in Chirrut’s breath when he pulled him close. “But you aren’t going to talk me into this.”

…

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

As often happened with Chirrut, Baze found himself wondering both aloud and in his head how exactly he'd ended up here. He and Chirrut were lying atop a wide flat rock along the darkest section of road, waiting for the bandits to pounce upon whatever speeder was unlucky enough to leave Jedha City last that night. Somehow this wasn’t quite the scene he’d imagined when he’d schemed how to arrange some time alone with Chirrut: both of them wearing absurd itchy masks and carrying heavy batons, waiting to beat the shit out of some bandits.

The bandits were lying across the road, on their own rock. The rocks around this crucial juncture of the road to the Outer Villages were sharp and flat, like discs that had splintered (hence the name “Shatter Rock”). Baze could hear several of them wheezing, the wet heavy breaths of people who smoked too much herb cigars and drank too much rice wine. Amateurs.

"I mean it. This is without a doubt the dumbest thing you've ever—“

"Shh!" Chirrut interrupted Baze's near soundless whisper with his own. "Look! Someone's coming! Light the flare when they get to the bend, then follow me!” Baze caught the fast approaching light of a heavy load speeder as Chirrut crept off toward the bandits. Ugh, he could be at the Temple right now, watching Chirrut do his nightly stretching routine.

Once the speeder got close enough that the bandits were ready to strike, Baze lit one of the flares that Guardians brought as a precaution when traveling outside the city. The speeder screeched as it slowed, drifting to a halt some 20 meters before the rocks. So now it was time for Chirrut to—

 _Thwack, thwack! Thwack thwack thwack_! And now—yes, there was the screaming, right on cue. Baze hustled over to at least get a little of the action before Chirrut got to show off too much. He grabbed one bandit from behind around the neck and used him as a shield against another’s blaster until a stray hit from Chirrut took out the shooter. His human shield dropped down to the ground, unconscious, and Baze bludgeoned two other bandits into submission before catching a third with a sharp elbow to the temple.

Baze wheeled around to face the last bandit, whose blaster Chirrut had knocked far out of reach. The bandit fumbled for the only thing he could find, his flashlight, and waved it menacingly at Baze. The light flashed across Baze's face, who quickly shielded his eyes to preserve his night vision, but the bandit suddenly cocked his head. His face was covered with a ragged kerchief embroidered with an anatomically correct skull, but Baze could see his eyes, now squinted in confusion. "Are you wearing a Huitzili grappling mask?” the bandit demanded.

"Uh...Yes," Baze said, and threw one of his batons at the bandit’s face. And wouldn’t Master Shenzada be proud—idiot went down like a lead balloon. He looked like he was down for the count, but Baze gave him another good kick to the head so he would stay that way.

"All clear," he called to Chirrut, who was checking on the speeder’s occupants. Lit up by the the speeder’s headlights, the masks looked even more ridiculous, but they couldn't well take them off now.

Baze walked over to join the group: two women—one tall and thin, one heavily pregnant—and their two small children, who seemed shaken but unharmed. "Oh, thank you both so much," said one of the women, running her hands frantically over her two children to reassure herself. She wore the bright green headscarf common among residents of the Outer Village closest to Jedha City. She and her wife probably thought they could make it home before the sunset, but miscalculated. Her children accepted her caresses dutifully but seemed much more interested in Baze and Chirrut's masks.

"You have our eternal gratitude, Guardian Mal—" She stopped at Chirrut and Baze's frantic head shakes. "Uh. Masked. Strangers. That we don't know. Or recognize. How can we ever repay you?”

"Especially since we don't know who you are!" the other woman added encouragingly, nodding along with her wife. "And can't identify you, to anyone. Because of the masks. On your faces.”

"Right," said Baze.

"Exactly!" said Chirrut, delighted. "May the Force be with you on the rest of your journey. We were humbled to be of service to you." The four adults nodded at each other for several long moments, in the reedy light of the speeders’ headlights, while the children stared up at them.

"Alright Saydee, Yoosuf, up we go," the taller woman said, hefting the children up into the speeder. She clamored up and offered a hand to her partner, while Baze hovered below to help. “I told you we should have spent the night in the City,” she muttered. The other retorted immediately, “and I told you that _you_ should be the one to carry our next kid, but here we are!” Baze looked forward to this kind of romance with Chirrut one day, if he was lucky.

"Thank you again!" they both called as they sped off, echoed by a fainter, higher pitcher chorus of thanks from their children.

Baze ripped his mask off, watching Chirrut do the same and emerge beaming. "See! I told you it would be fine! That was great! We barely broke a sweat.” Chirrut could hardly contain his pleasure, pacing around and grinning at the unconscious or semi-conscious bandits scattered around them. One tried to drag himself away before collapsing with a groan. All those damn herb cigars. No cardiovascular endurance.

“Chirrut." Any minute now, Chirrut would hopefully acknowledge Baze.

"We could do this all the time you know, think of all the problems we could solve!" Chirrut was really getting worked up now.

"Chirrut."

"The spice smugglers up in Colya Canyon, the fuel pirates out on the Flats, that horrible old man who took over all the arable land over in the—“ Baze had to stop this before it got out of hand. Time for drastic action.

"Chirrut." Chirrut finally sputtered to a halt, struck dumb by Baze's hands settling firmly on his waist. He stared up at Baze, who'd moved in close. Fuck his careful Six Week Plan to Seduce Chirrut (vetted meticulously by several of their friends). If Chirrut could be rash and reckless, then so could Baze.

"No more masks," he said, gently taking Chirrut's mask out of his hands and flinging it, along with Baze's own red and blue monstrosity, as far a he could into the darkness behind him. 

“But—"

"No more masks," he said, pulling Chirrut flush against him and bringing one hand up to cup his chin.

"No more masks," Chirrut whispered, before Baze leaned down and finally—finally!— kissed him.


End file.
